Traditions
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: As they prepare for the Voyager Halloween party, Torres and Chakotay find themselves thinking of an older tradition. Set late Season Four.


Traditions  
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story got its start when our local paper ran an article on the Mexican "Day of the Dead" celebration, prompting me into a flurry of research -- and into writing this story for two characters who just might have Mexican roots. It's also a response to the "chakotaytorres" list Halloween challenge for 2003. The challenge called for use of the following words: spirits, ancestors, moon, wolf, raven, black cat, ghosts, bats, candy, mask, leopard print thong (woman's and man's)

Please note, this is an alternate-universe story, postulating a romantic relationship between B'Elanna and Chakotay. It's set late fourth-season, sometime after "Hunters."

* * *

"This is stupid," B'Elanna muttered, stepping into her old-fashioned, raven-black slacks and fumbling with the zipper. 

"B'Elanna," Chakotay said mildly, "we do this every year." He drew his own black trousers up his legs, hooking them at the waist before drawing up his own zipper.

"I don't know why," she groused. "Halloween is a stupid holiday, anyway." She struggled into a long-sleeved ebony sweater, snorting with impatience when the high collar half-covered her face. She folded the fabric down quickly.

He followed suit with his own sweater. "Well, the crew does enjoy it." He slipped a belt through the loops at his trouser waistband, sliding a mock-leather holster on before negotiating the belt through the final loop.

"I know." Her turn to imitate him; once she was fastened, she slid an archaic, and non-functional, projectile weapon into her holster. "But this year, it feels like we're celebrating the wrong occasion."

He donned his pistol as well, and looked at her thoughtfully. Were the morbid overtones of Halloween disturbing her? With the news they had received a few months ago through the Hirogen communications array, about the slaughter of the Maquis, he suspected death seemed a little too near the surface this year for many of the crew. Certainly he could feel his own ghosts crowding close around him.

She picked up her black wool beret and turned it around in her hand as if she were considering it, but her eyes were remote. Finally, she set the hat down and said, "We should celebrate the Day of the Dead."

Something within him went still with surprise. "I never knew you celebrated the Day of the Dead."

She looked at him, clearly startled. "You mean you do?"

"Yes, I...I mean, my father did. Everyone in the tribe did." Chakotay had not marked the day himself in years, though ever since Kolopak had died he'd felt the tug at his heart and his spirit, especially when the right time of year came around. But in the Maquis, death had not been seen as something to celebrate, and Chakotay knew that on Voyager many of his beliefs, though publicly they might be acknowledged politely enough, were privately considered as superstitious as fear of a black cat. "It began with our Aztec ancestors, after all. Why did YOU celebrate it?"

"My name IS Torres," she answered drily. "Do you have to ask? And I didn't observe it very often. But I visited Grandma Torres in Mexico when I was a little girl, and I helped her make the altar a few times. And I remember how wonderful the pan de muerto smelled."

He thought of the bread and cakes Kolopak had always made for the occasion, and the savory meat dishes his mother had prepared. "Yes, it did."

"And we always had the greatest picnics at the cemetery, near the family markers. Grandma made the most wonderful cookies and candy," she said wistfully. "I loved chocolate. We didn't have it at home."

"We did," he said softly, recalling. "My mother made it. We grew our own cacao beans." Kolopak had thought cacao a fine, traditional crop; it had had the added benefit of making Chakotay and his sister rather popular among their childhood peers.

"I think I'm jealous," she said with a tiny smile.

He offered her a matching one. "One of the few things about my childhood I really appreciated."

She shrugged. "At least you had something."

He mentally filed that reference away for follow-up later, pursuing instead the main point of the conversation. "You want to have a Day of the Dead now? Here?"

"I want..." She paced off a few steps, looking restless. "No, I need to. I think maybe a lot of us need to."

"We need to honor their spirits," he said quietly, thinking of the fellow Maquis they all knew (now) were no longer waiting for them, at least not on this plane of existence.

"We need to remember how glad we are that they were alive." Her own voice was low, and she looked up at him with the barest, bravest upturn of lips. The Maquis had been her family, the first family -- she'd said -- that she had ever known.

"Yes," he agreed as softly, stepping closer to her, extending his hand to cup one slim, strong shoulder. "And we need to remember the unbroken cycle."

"'In the midst of life we are in death, in the midst of death we are in life.'" Reverently, she quoted the words of the faith that had joined its traditions to those of the ancient Aztecs, to change and reshape the older holiday into the one that Chakotay and B'Elanna shared.

"Not quite the words my ancestors would have said, but close enough." He took her into his arms.

"We'll have our own Day of the Dead, then. I'll speak to the captain about making it a ship-wide celebration." Despite the urgings of the she-wolf who was his spirit guide, Chakotay hadn't been willing to draw yet more attention to his spiritual traditions. For B'Elanna's sake, though, he would risk their shipmates' reactions. "And if she's not willing, we'll have a private Day here. We'll invite the other Maquis, if they're interested." He kissed her forehead. "Would a couple of days be soon enough?"

"Sure." She leaned up and kissed him in return. "Thank you, Chakotay."

"Of course." A bit reluctantly, he peeled himself out of her arms. "But in the meantime, we're expected at the Halloween party." He reached for his beret, settling it on his hair. "Come on, B'Elanna. We don't have to stay long. And if I'm going to talk the captain into one of our traditional celebrations, it would help if we share one of hers."

She sighed but acquiesced, donning her own beret. "At least I don't have to wear a mask."

"If I remember correctly," he said, the smallest bit of archness creeping into his voice, "you were considering wearing a lot less."

She snorted. "Excuse me, Nature Boy. I thought you'd like the leopard-print thong."

"Men's and women's," he recalled. "No thanks. I get cold easily. And," he let his eyes travel over her lithe form, "I don't like to share my favorite view."

"Coward," she teased.

"Yes, ma'am." He extended a hand, which she took. "Shall we?"

A few minutes later, two 24th-century Maquis entered Holodeck 2, clad in the garb of their 20th-century counterparts. Around them milled others in a wide variety of costumes, and over their heads, black bats circled a huge glowing moon.

END

(After two years, I finally wrote a sequel for this story! "In the Midst of Life..." will be posted as soon as I have the chance to put it up.)


End file.
